


Playing God

by clocky



Category: Digimon - All Media Types, Digimon Adventure Zero Two | Digimon Adventure 02
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-28
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2018-02-10 18:37:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2035770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clocky/pseuds/clocky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Diablomon locates his programmer at last.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Playing God

**Author's Note:**

> This is something of a sub/dub mashup. The idea of Wallace being Diablomon's programmer intrigues me, and I wanted to write what may have happened if Diablomon had succeeding in finding Wallace, rather than being defeated by Omegamon. This would take place after the beginning of Hurricane Touchdown, but before Wendimon begins pursuing Wallace. There's still a ton of continuity errors, sorry about that.

Wallace stumbles backwards and hits the floor, utterly overwhelmed by the presence of the enormous creature before him. It draws closer, and he tries to scoot away, tries to push himself to his feet, but his limbs feel like jelly. It’s too late now anyway, the monster—the Digimon, if it can even be called that—is lowering its head and within seconds its face is perhaps a metre away. He wonders how painful his death will be.

He deserves this, really. He’d gone too far, gotten too lost in his grief over losing Chocomon. And now his mistake is towering over him in the most literal sense.

His eyes slip closed and he waits. Waits for his creation to take his life, waits for his own idiocy to claim him. Waits for the end of the pain that began years ago and has eaten away at him ever since.

But nothing happens.

Slowly, Wallace opens his eyes. The Digimon has not moved. It stays completely still, continuing to stare at him with large, feral eyes. It opens its mouth, and Wallace winces. Its breath feels like static and its teeth are deathly sharp, but it doesn’t make a move to bite. A sound rumbles up from its throat and Wallace ducks his head, instinctively shields his ears from the deafening noise. Does raw data have a sound? This must be it.

After a moment, the noise subsides, and when Wallace dares to glance up again the Digimon’s face is mere centimetres away. Wallace feels lightheaded. Why isn’t he dead yet? His thoughts are interrupted as the noise begins again, and then subsides once more.

“I—I don’t know what you want from me,” Wallace manages to blubber out as tears fill his eyes. His head is throbbing and he feels nauseated. He wants to go home. “I don’t know what you want.”

One more time, the Digimon emits the terrible sound from its mouth. But this time it’s different—yes, somewhere in the glitchy, staticy mess of code, there’s something almost akin to a voice, and it calls out a name.

 _Wallace_.

 

                                                                                                *  *  *

 

_My name. It said my name._

Wallace feels as though he is having an out of body experience. His brain can’t seem to focus, and gravity seems to keep his limbs firmly stuck to the ground. All he can do is stare back into the Digimon’s huge, round eyes.

_It knows who I am. It knows who I am. I’m the programmer. It knows._

They continue to stare into each other’s eyes for several seconds. Or maybe several hours. Wallace doesn’t know. Finally, he takes a deep breath and hesitantly replies.

“Kuramon?”

The Digimon tosses its head back with a triumphant roar that leaves Wallace clutching his ears in pain. Then its face is once again looming over him, its mouth twisted into what could have been a smile if only the Digimon’s mouth weren’t made of polygons.

Then a small, pixilated window pops up beside the Digimon.

_Play with me?_

Wallace is silent for a moment.

Then he laughs. He laughs, and laughs, and laughs, for so long and so hard that he begins to fear he may not be able to stop.

“This is why? This is the reason why? This is why you put everyone in danger—this is why you hurt Agumon and Gabumon? This is why Patamon almost _died_?”

The Digimon only stares at him, unblinking, in return. If it understands what Wallace is saying, it doesn’t show it.

Wallace raises his voice in anger. “Don’t you know right from wrong—?”

And then he stops.

How could Diablomon possibly know right from wrong? Wallace had never programmed it into him. No, the only thing on his mind had been creating another Digimon who would be his friend, who would play with him and Gummymon, just like Chocomon had—

…Chocomon.

He laughs again, bitterly. This creature before him is so far removed from what Chocomon had been.  He was a fool to have thought he could bring him back somehow, to fill the empty space Chocomon had left with this…this monstrosity.

He hates Diablomon. He hates everything about it.

But not anywhere near as much as he hates himself.

 If only the Digimon had caused all this destruction maliciously. It would be so easy to blame him, to declare him a dangerous menace that needed to be deleted, and have that be the end of it.

But how can you blame someone who doesn’t know the difference between good and evil, between right and wrong? He’s a child. And Wallace is the one who programmed him that way.

The crushing weight of this realization pushes Wallace down to his knees, and he begins to wail, his whole body shaking as tears spill down his cheeks. He cries and cries, and cries some more until something bumps against him and knocks him off balance.

He gulps back a sob and opens his bloodshot eyes, slowly looks up.

Diablomon stares back at him. Then it moves forward to push its head against him a second time. Wallace almost falls flat on his back from the force, but he catches strands of long goldenrod hair and keeps himself steady. A low rumbling sound rises in the Digimon’s throat and makes the ground vibrate beneath Wallace’s feet. He wipes the tears from his eyes and meets Diablomon’s gaze once again. When he speaks, it’s in a hoarse whisper.

“Okay. Let’s play.”


End file.
